The civil complaint [PDF] details the bogus inner workings of the lawsuits filed by shell companies set up by Solvera. (Also, shell defendants.)

Solvera Defendants next contract with attorneys, including in Harris County, Texas, to file defamation lawsuits on behalf of their customers. At this point, both the consumer and the attorney are misled. Specifically, Solvera Defendants fail to obtain authorization from, or even notify, its customers before contracting with attorneys to file lawsuits as part of their services. Businesses are surprised to learn, after the fact, that a company with a very similar name to their legal name has been named as the plaintiff in a lawsuit.

Second, the attorney has been told by Solvera Defendants that they have already identified and contacted the alleged defamation defendant, the individual who purportedly posted the negative information on the Internet, and the parties have already reached a settlement. Solvera Defendants have already drafted the lawsuit, and send it along with the URL De-Index Agreement to the attorney. Local attorneys are thereby misled, because Solvera Defendants misrepresent that their customer has in fact authorized a lawsuit, when in actuality it is a fictitious business entity. This entity has then granted power of attorney to the local lawyer.

Solvera Defendants make this misrepresentation by sending those attorneys a different version of the URL De-Index Agreement than the one that was signed by the customer. This version of the De-Index Agreement includes provisions stating that the consumer has agreed to be represented by the local attorney by granting a power of attorney, provisions that are not present in the original De-Index Agreement.

Moreover, these local attorneys are further misled because Solvera Defendants fail to actually identify and contact the original poster of the content the consumer had believed was defamatory. Instead, a California blogger has made an additional posting to the original purportedly defamatory content, and has agreed to be "defendant" in the defamation lawsuit.

Identifying the person consumers believe originally posted negative information would be nearly impossible to accomplish from the often anonymous complaints posted on the internet. So, Solvera Defendants have a local California associate sign an affidavit, in which he/she falsely states that he/she is a resident of the Court's jurisdiction, including Harris County, and further falsely states that he/she engaged in all of the conduct alleged in the lawsuit, which extends to more than just the comment that they had additionally provided. This is evidenced by the fact that invariably the affidavit is notarized in California despite the alleged defamation defendant's supposed local residence, in Harris County.

A bogus lawsuit is filed in a Texas court, purportedly from a company located outside of the state, featuring a defendant allegedly located in Texas but willing to take a road trip to California to get their confession notarized by a lawyer there. A judgment is secured against the defendant, which is passed along to Google for delisting as supposedly defamatory content. This all goes on without Solvera's customers knowing this is happening. Not only that, but the lawyers contracted to file the legal paperwork apparently have no idea they're participating in Solvera's fraud on the court.

If this complaint sticks, Solvera will be blocked from filing more bogus lawsuits and (importantly) from attempting to deep-six any still pending in Texas courts. If the court finds for the state, Solvera will also be required to repay every customer they defrauded, along with $20,000 per violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Hopefully, most of this will stick and serve as a pricey deterrent to others hoping to turn a profit by lying to the courts.

Parallel

Lawyers are running into the same trouble as the police - they claim that a few "bad-apples" are making the rest look bad, but as long as they don't weed out those bad-apples themselves, they WILL be tarred with the same brush. After all, one bad apples spoils the whole bunch, and the bunch is looked pretty spoiled indeed.

Civil?

Re: Civil?

If I read this complex story right, the lawyers are giving false information to the court in good faith. The lawyers have been lied to, and believing those lies to be true, the lawyers pass that on to the court. The court believes in the credibility of the lawyers.

Maybe lying to the lawyer is perjury. And if so, then that is where the perjury is happening.

But maybe I am misunderstanding?

There needs to be an even better simpler explanation of how this scam works. With a few fictional names of various parties.